Faith

THIRA, Greece (AP) — Cruise-ship tourists crowding souvenir shops and couples chasing the perfect Instagram sunset throng the alleyway outside the Monastery of St. Catherine, steps from Santorini's world-famous volcanic cliffs.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis urged the people and leaders of Congo and South Sudan on Saturday to "turn a page" and forge new paths of reconciliation, peace and development.

 Oklahoma City -- Paul Abner, speaking on behalf of Oklahoma Faith Leaders, praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of “Dobbs v. Jackson,” returning regulation of abortion of policy to the state level. Oklahoma Faith Leaders is described as a coalition comprised of pastors repres…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a football coach from Washington state who sought to kneel and pray on the field after games.

Oklahoma City — In recent weeks many tragedies have struck our nation.On June 1, tragedy struck in Tulsa when four people were killed at a hospital by a returning patient, including the doctor who had performed the surgery. The patient then killed himself as police arrived at the scene. Over…

ROME (AP) — The Vatican newspaper is starting a new monthly edition dedicated to the poor and people on the margins, aimed at not only telling their stories but involving them in the paper's production and distribution, the Vatican said Friday.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan's capital of Kabul that killed at least one worshipper and wounded seven others.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Protests have been erupting in many Indian cities to condemn the demolition of homes and businesses belonging to Muslims, in what critics call a growing pattern of "bulldozer justice" aimed at punishing activists from the minority group.

Willie McLaurin, interim president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, speaks during the Southern Baptist Convention in Anaheim, Calif., on Monday, June 13, 2022. (John McCoy/The Tennessean via AP)

OKLAHOMA CITY — June 4, 2022 — While Jehovah’s Witnesses have chosen to temporarily suspend their door-to-door ministry during the worldwide pandemic, their activity was almost permanently banned by one U.S. village in the late 1990s.That was the risk, until the United States Supreme Court s…

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate by announcing he would visit the central Italian city of L'Aquila in August for a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Narendra Modi rose from his chair and walked briskly towards the podium to deliver another nighttime address to the nation. It was expected the speech would include a rare message of interfaith harmony in the country where religious tensions have risen under his rule.

BEIJING (AP) — The top U.N. human rights official said Saturday that she raised concerns with Chinese officials about the impact of the broad application of counterterrorism and deradicalization measures on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China's Xinjiang region.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has sent a protocol greeting to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, assuring him of prayers on his patron's feast day and stressing the value of human life and wisdom, as the Vatican insists on maintaining cordial relations amid the war in Ukraine.

Top administrative leaders for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they will release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his spiritual closeness to Catholics in China, voicing hope that the church there operates in "freedom and tranquility,'' but making no mention of a 90-year-old cardinal who was recently arrested in Hong Kong.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Wedged into a recliner in the corner of her assisted living apartment in Portland, Skylar Freimann, who has a terminal heart condition and pulmonary illness, anxiously eyed her newly arrived hospital bed on a recent day and worried over how she would maintain independen…

HONG KONG (AP) — Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 90-year-old Catholic cleric arrested by Hong Kong police on national security charges, has long been a fiery critic of Beijing's control of religion and political monopoly, along with efforts by the Vatican to reach a working arrangement with the rul…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that Boston violated the free speech rights of a conservative activist when it refused his request to fly a Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall.

Shannen Dee Williams grew up Black and Catholic. Yet even as a young adult, she knew of only one Black nun, and a fake one at that — Sister Mary Clarence, as played by Whoopi Goldberg in the comic film "Sister Act." After 14 years of research, Williams – a history professor at the University…

LUKASHIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — A single metal cross remains inside the church of shattered brick and blackened stone. Russian soldiers used the house of worship for storing ammunition, residents said, and Ukrainian forces shelled the building to make the Russians leave.

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Three years after an arsonist torched three small Black churches in rural Louisiana, rebuilding is well under way. The Daily World reports that Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas is months from reopening. And there's visible progress at St. Mary Baptist Church i…

BOSTON (AP) — For many U.S. Christians, this weekend marks the first time since 2019 that they will gather in person on Easter Sunday, a welcome chance to celebrate one of the year's holiest days side by side with fellow congregants.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Christian worshipers gathered in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepluchre, the traditional site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial and resurrection, on Sunday to observe the Easter holiday.

VASYLKIV, Ukraine (AP) — The final hours before Passover found the chief rabbi for Kyiv and Ukraine in a cemetery. Before he could mark the Jewish people's escape from slavery in Egypt thousands of years ago, he was burying a man who didn't escape a Russian bullet.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians clashed with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Friday as thousands gathered for prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. Medics said more than 150 Palestinians were wounded in the most serious violence at the site in nearly a year.

Easter's message of renewal will be especially poignant this year for four U.S. congregations rebounding from disasters. A tornado destroyed one church in Kentucky. A blaze gutted another in New York City. Hurricane Ida shattered a church when the storm hit the Louisiana coast, and the most …

HOSHIV, Ukraine (AP) — Beneath the ancient beech forests of the Carpathian Mountains, a quiet monastery in the western Ukrainian village of Hoshiv has transformed itself into a giant playground for a dozen children who've been displaced by the war with their families.

The top-ranking Ukrainian Catholic cleric in the United States warned Thursday that religious minorities in the Eastern European country stand to be "crushed" if Moscow gains control, as fighting raged on more than a month after the Russian invasion began.

Oklahoma City -- All congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the world are being encouraged to begin holding in-person meetings during the week of April 1, The Oklahoma City Sentinel has learned. For most of the last two years, buildings for worship have remained closed globally due to t…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Since the shelling began to intensify in Kyiv and Kharkiv about a week ago, Julia Entin has been working feverishly — thousands of miles away in Los Angeles — to evacuate Holocaust survivors in Ukraine who find themselves trapped in yet another conflict.

Over the past five years, hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses have been subjected to raids, arrests and prosecution in Russia. Many others have fled – including one couple, Dmitrii and Nellia Antsybor, who flew to Mexico last year, walked across the U.S. border to seek asylum, and now hope to bu…

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica on Friday, going ahead with the service despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has prompted a new vaccine mandate for Vatican employees.

When Westminster United Methodist Church in Houston resumed in-person services late last year, after a seven-month halt due to COVID-19, there were Sundays when only three worshippers showed up, according to the pastor, Meredith Mills.